Where Have all of the Dissertations Gone?

A Comparison of RILM, Music Index, DDM-Online, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

Kirstin Dougan

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Presented by John Wagstaff

Music Library Association Annual Meeting

March 2010, San Diego, CA

What’s the problem here?

Locating dissertationsVarious formats, including emergence of

electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)Various online tools for identifying, and

now with ETDs, accessingPhysical and/or ETD copy of dissertation

may be deposited with Library, Department, Graduate School, and/or directly with UMI/ProQuest

Challenges of author-supplied content and metadata

Dissertation Formats

Findability

RILM, Music Index, DDM-Online, etc.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

Description of the StudyComparison of online versions of

RILMMusic IndexDoctoral Dissertations in Musicology-Online (DDM)

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT)

Searching for known dissertations in musicology

Schools with similar PhD programs chosen: UIUC, UNC-CH, IU

Coverage ComparisonRILM MI DDM PQDT

Dissertation types

Doctoral and non-doctoral

Doctoral only Doctoral only;Finished and in progress

Dissertations and theses

US Degree types PhD, DMA, EdD Ph.D., D.M.A., A.Mus.D., Ed.D., D.Ed. D.M.E., D.A.

Primarily PhD and DMA, some EdD

PhD, D.M.A., Ed.D., D.Ed. D.M.E., A.Mus.D., Mus.D.

Subjects All music All music Musicology,Performance,Music Education (PhD)

All

Dates covered 1969-present 1972-present 1897*-present 1861*-present

Abstracts Yes No No Yes

Student-supplied metadata?

Yes Yes/No Yes Yes

International? Intl U.S./Canada Intl Intl

Cost ? $ $ Free $

Search Options ComparisonRILM, Music Index, and PQDT allow

searching by specific fields and/or keywords anywhere

RILM and PQDT include abstracts, so more data for keyword searches to search

DDM only allows keywords anywheredoes have an author indexdoes have time-period indexdoes allow searching of “all,” “completed,” or “in-progress” dissertations

RILM Field Choices

Music Index Field Choices

PQDT Field Choices

Field comparison chart-1

RILM (via Ebsco)Music Index (via

Ebsco) PQDT DDM*

TitleTitle [includes school, degree and date] Document Title [title]

Record TypeDocument Type [dissertation] Publication Type Source type

Authors Authors Author [author]

Major Topics

Subjects Subject Terms Subject name/codeIndex terms (Keyword(s))

[additional keywords]

Abstract Abstract

Abstractor Name

Publication Date [see title above] Date

Field comparison chart-2

RILM (via Ebsco)Music Index (via

Ebsco) PQDT DDM*Dissertation Source [school and degree] [see title above] Degree [degree]

School name/Code [school]

School Location

Publisher [UMI] Source [DAI] Source [DAI]Country of Publication

Country of Publication

Pagination

Physical Description

Language Language Document Language

ISBN ISSN ISBN

RILM Source

UMI Number[UM[I] number]

Field comparison chart-3RILM (via

Ebsco)Music Index (via Ebsco) PQDT DDM*

ISBN ISSN ISBN

RILM SourceAccession Number

Accession Number

ProQuest Document ID

[DDM code, DA[I] number, RILM number]

Volume/Issue (DVI) [DAI?]

Journal Subset

Advisor [Research director]

Committee Member

Dissertation Field Department

Publication Number

Supplemental files

Dcoument text

Search MethodologyMaster lists of completed dissertations were

obtained from three school’s Musicology web sites

Musicology focus because of manageability and because DDM is somewhat more limited in scope than the other databases

General searches were conducted in each online resource to cast wide net for each school for PhD dissertations in musicology between 1979 and 2008

Search results were compared against master lists

Any dissertations not found in general searches were searched by name and/or title

Percent of Titles Found & Not Found

RILM MI DDM PQDT

  FoundNot

foundFound

Not found

FoundNot

foundFound

Not found

UIUC 82.30% 17.70% 93.70% 6.30% 46.80% 53.20% 100% 0%

UNC-CH

82.30% 17.70% 94.90% 5.10% 88.60% 11.40% 100% 0%

IU 88.80% 11.10% 97.30% 2.80% 100% 0% 97.20% 2.80%

Average 84.47% 15.50% 95.30% 4.73% 78.47% 21.53% 99.07% 0.93%

Ranking by titles found*

1.ProQuest 99.07%2.MI 95.03%3.RILM 84.47%4.DDM 78.47%

*Average across all three schools

Analysis of anomalies/not-founds

RILM and Music IndexNot-founds generally newest (3 years old

and newer)When necessary to find by name or title

was because key data such as full school name or degree information missing

DDMDepends heavily on whether school

requires submissionProQuest

Almost 100% find rate--one not found because “music” not listed in subject

Other data issues observed

Degree notation varies by school and/or over timeDMEd vs EdD

Challenges in student-assigned metadata and findabilitySelf-chosen keywords/subjectsOften omit key information such as department

Electronic Theses & DissertationsSince late 1980sMany universities now only accept

electronic copies (usually PDFs) of dissertations as the official format

University may have ETD repository and/or a general institutional repository OR may just house ETD with PQDT

Potentially many access points to the ETD beyond the ones already discussed

ETD Sources Besides PQDTThesis repositories

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

CRL’s foreign dissertation collectionScholarly repositories/indexes

OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)

Google Scholar (working with PQDT)Country or topic-specific sources (not all ETDs,

not all music)Theses Canada Portal  Music Theory Online Dissertation Index  

Individual schoolsInstitutional repositoriesInstitutional ETD repositories